Annual Report Overviews

Project Activities

The grant provided support and professional development for: (1) middle school mathematics teachers in all middle schools in Albemarle, Buckingham, Craig, and Montgomery counties and Roanoke City, (2) teachers of high school mathematics in all schools (except Blacksburg High School) in Buckingham, Craig, and Montgomery counties, and (3) high school mathematics teachers at Patrick Henry High School (Roanoke City) and at Brooke Point High School (Stafford County).

During the 1999-2000 school year, we held biweekly 3-hour meetings in Albemarle County with middle school mathematics teachers and biweekly 3-hour meetings in Buckingham, Craig, Montgomery, and Stafford counties with teachers of high school mathematics. During these meetings, we delivered professional development built around MathScape in Albemarle, Core Plus in Buckingham and Montgomery, IMP in Craig, and SIMMS in Stafford, and the teachers received credit for a 3-semester hour graduate level mathematics course at Virginia Tech. The tuition for this course was paid by Virginia Tech. With the exception of Craig County, this professional development was provided by a team consisting of either Mick or Patty and a school-based person (a teacher or a supervisor). The leadership in Craig was provided by Patty.

During the 1999-2000 school year, we also held monthly 2-hour meetings with middle school teachers in Buckingham, Craig, and Montgomery counties and in Roanoke City. These meetings were a continuation of previous professional development and served the same purpose as the biweekly 3-hour meetings of the previous school year. These meetings were designed to provide the teachers with whatever assistance that was needed as they implemented the chosen curriculum. They also provided an opportunity for the teachers to share information. Five 2-hour meetings were held for the Patrick Henry High School teachers. With the exception of Craig County, this professional development was provided by a team consisting of Mick or Patty and a school-based person (a teacher or a supervisor). The leadership in Craig County was provided by Patty.

During the summer of 2000, we held 5-day professional development workshops in Albemarle County for middle school mathematics teachers, and in Buckingham, Craig, Montgomery, and Stafford counties for teachers of high school mathematics. The professional development was built around MathScape in Albemarle County, Core Plus in Buckingham County, IMP in Craig County, Core Plus in Montgomery County, and SIMMS at Brooke Point High School in Stafford County. In each case, the professional development was provided by a team consisting of Mick or Patty and a school-based person (a teacher or a supervisor).

During the summer of 2000, we also held a 2-day professional development workshop in Montgomery County for middle school mathematics teachers. The professional development was built around Connected Mathematics, and it was provided by Patty and Kreye.

Advisory Board meetings were held on October 26, 1999 and May 11, 2000.

We published two issues of the COMET newsletter — one in Fall 1999 and one in Spring 2000.

Two talks were given — one at the annual national meeting of the MAA in Washington DC in January, 2000 and one at the annual meeting of the Virginia Council of Teachers of Mathematics in March, 2000.

We completed a technology survey with teachers from our six district partners. The survey was designed to address the questions: "How do teachers use technology?" and "How do students use technology?"

Throughout the first three years of our project, we have been coordinating Virginia Tech’s pre-service courses in teacher preparation programs with students’ clinical (student aiding and student teaching) experiences in project schools. This practice has intensified the past year as we placed four pre-service students with project teachers at Ruffner Middle School and another four students with project teachers at Blacksburg Middle School for student aiding, and one student teacher with a project teacher at Ruffner Middle School and another student teacher with a project teacher at Blacksburg Middle School. We are using a significant amount of NSF funded curricula materials in undergraduate and graduate pre-service courses. For example, we used six Connected Mathematics algebra units as the basil text for Math 2624 Algebra and Computing for Teachers during Spring 2000, and we used units from Core Plus and IMP for two secondary mathematics education courses.